Tag: Hermes records

My goal was to form a band with musicians with different backgrounds and tastes. As a guitar player progressive and metal music have influenced me most. Our drummer, Rouzbeh Fadavi, comes from more jazzy background, our pianist, Mazyar Younesi, is graduated in classical music and also a conductor, and our woodwind player, Soheil Peyghambari, has more folk music background. Ehsan Sadigh, guitarist and one of the founders of Teheran based Quartet Diminished, points very clearly in his words at what were his purposes since the start of his band. Different identities collide in four different people’ backgrounds, western and eastern cultures clash, electric clashes with acoustic, Iranian classical clashes with western jazz and metal. QuartetDiminished is first and foremost a battle scene, where notes, modes, rhythms bring their history in and meet.

But wouldn’t this mix of influences risk to fall into chaos? Musicologist Carl Dalhaus once told that we should not talk about ‘identities’ in music, better to use the word ‘Wesen‘. The translation of this german term might be ‘being’, or better ‘consciousness of being’. When human beings are born, they gradually start creating their consciousness by difference: I am not the world outside [Marcello Sorce Keller Identities in traditional and western musics in Enciclopedia della Musica, Il Sole 24 Ore]. An identity is built upon a difference with other identities. This approach applied to music hints at how every culture might be seen as a separate from another. In the speed of light collapsing universe of today’s music cultures, bringing together the more distant sounds is becoming the rule. And the result is often a chaos producing system of multiple influences blended together. But is mixing cultures creating a new identity or is it just a plain juxtapositions of sounds? From my point of view as listener, I appreciate when the culture clashing process creates new identities. If you are looking for this option as well, then put Quartet Diminished on the top of your wishlist.

Take the sixteen minutes of Cluster, third track of their 2018 effort Station Two. While the length might surely appeal progressive rock fans, this is not exactly a typical ‘prog epic’, nor a classical suite. But something that fits in the middle. The slightly disturbing repetitions of piano intro’s power chords pave the road for the drums and guitar’ grandeur metal entry. Piano and bass clarinet answers back each distorted chord, but there’s not time left to start the headbanging. A sudden interruption places the piano back in. Younesi initiates a rubato dialogue with Peyghambari‘ssaxophone with a sort of dorian mode feeling. An unison cascading line played by piano and guitar falls at the moment when the bass clarinet and drums may start back the sound and fury.

These frequent start and stops are the core of Quartet Diminished‘s music, thanks to the unique approach of the only single rhythmic element of the band, the drummer Rouzbeh Fadavi. A disquieting sense of disruption of our concept of the uninterrupted standard western song. If we take the perspective of traditional Iranian classical music and the music system of the avaz, which is based on the sequences of different moods and modes -to roughly translate that, then this structure seems no wonder. EhsanSadig offers his point of view on the traditional Iranian music: The influence of Iranian rhythms and melodies has precipitated in our subconscious somehow. Therefore, we don’t use them deliberately in many occasions, they just penetrate in our music in a subtle way. Coming back to the point of Cluster we left off, the rhythmic section in 3+3+3+2 first explodes vigorously, then placidly moves back to intro theme, while Ehsan Sadig plays shrilling bendings over a phrygian traditional scale. Suddenly piano’s descending rumblings move the atmosphere to a rondo-style -with the absence of the drums- that morphs in an intricate 5+3+4 jazz-rock rhythmic section. When the drum enters again in, Peyghambari is left the space to fill with his intense and prolonged folk echoes. If we ever looked for a definition of Cluster, then this might be: a chamber electro-acoustic suite played by traditionally influenced progressive musicians [!].

Quartet Diminished are now approaching their second release, but their roots are in the initial line-up for the release as trio earlier in 2013. As EhsanSadig tells me: Our first band was called ‘Whisper’, including drums (Rouzbeh), Guitar (Me) and bass (Nima). When the bass player left the band, I decided to replace it with saxophone (Parviz). Diminished was the name of my first released album. Ending up being released under the name ofEhsan Sadig Trio, Diminished is a distinctive sound album: traditional music played in a ritual-like context. Instruments alternate often in solo or duos throughout the release, the rests are frequently taking the scene more than the music itself. A subtle sense of tension pervades this work, while guitar is not necessarily playing always and everywhere. With the entrance of new members, the project slightly changed its sound:Mazyar Younesi (pianist and conductor) joined the band shortly after Parviz (sax player) left the band, so I decided to make a new quartet band. Then Peter Soleimanipour joined the quartet as woodwind player and the first album of quartet diminished (Station One) got released. Published by Hermes records in 2015, Station One is an intricate rhythms shift and a leap forward in their music making. While polyrhythmic layers blink at postminimal european bands such as Nik Bärtsch, the sounds are taking nourishment from multiple sources at once, thanks also to the decision to make their project unique with no bass instrument. Traditional music, classical, jazz: Station One is taking the roads of unexpectedness. After Peter left the quartet, Soheil Peyghambari joined us as our new woodwind player about 2 years ago and with the new lineup the second album of Quartet Diminished (Station Two).

The eponymous track opening Station Two is already a showcase of how these multiple sources of influence may collide and meet. After Ehsan Sadig‘s scratching on guitar strings collapses in all-band avant-like noise, then the guitarist creates a groove with a simple hypnotic repetition of a single note. The tap-your-feet pattern that follows is enriched by Soheil Peyghambari‘s deep bass clarinet, that is easy to compare to the rhythmic efforts by swiss Sha. And then it breaks in a stopping tension opening for piano solo: slowly built around jazz and traditional music atmospheres, it moves in a similar direction to what others, such like Tigran Hamasyan, are doing by mixing western and eastern traditions in the contemporary context. The grand finale with its long and aggressive notes repeated by whole band,comes again after a pause. Tension and sudden rests: those are the rules in Quartet Diminished music. They are always looking at managing the tension of the track in some way in between traditional ritual and western avantgarde music. Ehsan puts it in very easy manner: Iranian folk music is one of our influences since the Iranian ritual music is a branch of Iranian folk music more or less, and we’ve heard those melodies and ballads from our early childhood via media and etc..

The following track, Zone, has even more metal chamber moments for Ehsan Sadig to show his wide array of techniques. Ranging from palm muted to power chord, tapping and sweep picking arpeggios, his efforts are never appearing as effortless virtuoso exhibitionism. The initial drum rolling -which incidentally Sadig indicates as having been inspired by a kurdish rhythm- works as the preparation for the subsequent polyrhythmic layering between piano playing in a 12 on 4 feeling and guitar following a 3+4+3+4+3+4 pattern. Quartet Diminished are frequently working with slow intertwining tempos, which seems to let more easily explode the thrilling solos by Sadig on guitar or the folk embellished lyrical melodies by Peyghambari.

Moving through more pensive atmospheres, Mood II morphs in a Bärtsch-like ritual pattern after 5 minutes of dialogue between clarinet and guitar sustained by piano’s repeated chords. Then eventually explodes in a sort of orchestral finale via an ascending scale that liquefies the listener’s tension in a peaceful joy. Quartet Diminished alternates moments of improvisation to strictly written materials, often exposing it to multiple layers: Each track of ours is a result of a different procedure more or less, sometimes we extract the ideas from our improvises and then fix them by writing them. In other occasion, one of us might bring a written idea or phrase of his, then this written part will blend with improvises, individual ideas and transforms to a new creation which belongs to all of us. The closing Mood I is an ecstatic classical guitar work of art, we might find references someway in the Arabian music that influenced Spanish classical music. Clarinet is joining Sadig‘s delightful tunes in such a delicate manner that, when Younesi‘s lyrical voice enters in, it is almost impossible to distinguish each of them. They are moving us to an heavenly place we would like to sit in for the longest time possible.

Stations Two is a statement of identity from a band that moves in a unforeseen territory crossing avantgarde, ritual music, chamber orchestra and even metal and prog. Not a surprise that these guys are attracting the interest of so many fine producers such as ManfredEicher or LeonardoPavkovic. They are moving us in a modern ritual, a conscious and respectful ritual of the dialogue between multiple identities, that look at melting in a new identity.